


The Hogwarts Express: A Century of Travel in 9 ¾ Chapters

by seekeronthepath



Series: Hogwarts: A Historiography [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hogwarts Express, Magical History, Meta, Nonfiction, Where did it come from?, why a train?, why is the hogwarts express a thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekeronthepath/pseuds/seekeronthepath
Summary: The preface and first chapter of a non-existent book by Bruce Nelson, a retired employee of the British Hidden Railway Company (which owns and operates the Hogwarts Express).Why does the Hogwarts Express exist? Why travel by train? How did it come to be?
Series: Hogwarts: A Historiography [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701928
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. Contents page

**Preface:** Why a train?

**Chapter 1:** The origins of the Hogwarts Express

**Chapter 2:** How do trains work?

**Chapter 3:** The engine

**Chapter 4:** The carriages

**Chapter 5:** The tea trolley

**Interlude:** Interviews with Hogwarts Express staff

**Chapter 6:** The route

**Chapter 7:** Platform 9 ¾

**Chapter 8:** Hogsmeade Station

**Chapter 9:** Other notable stations on the Northern Line

**Afterword:** The next hundred years


	2. Preface: Why a train?

Since 1897, Hogwarts students have been making their way to the castle on that well-beloved train, the Hogwarts Express. Its bright red locomotive and comfortable carriages have come to symbolise the beginning of the school year, and many friendships (and enmities) have been forged on the day-long journey. In the following chapters, this book will recall familiar memories and expose hidden details of the Express and its route...but why is that journey made by train in the first place? The answer lies in the history of magical travel itself. 

\-----

The easiest and most common form of magical travel is flight. Levitation is among the first spells that wizards learn in all magical cultures, and it is a common form of accidental magic. Flight is a more complex but closely related skill, and is acquired naturally in childhood by approximately one in a thousand wizards. It is therefore unsurprising that nearly all magical cultures have developed a form of flight-based transportation. Chariots, carriages, sleighs, and boats have all been enchanted to fly. Both species with the natural power of flight (primarily winged horses and thestrals), and non-magical horses, donkeys, and reindeer have been used to draw flying vehicles, while other vessels provide their own motive power. Enchanted rings, bags, cloaks, hats, and shoes have been created to give their bearer the power of flight. And of course, flying carpets and brooms are still in heavy use; it is a rare European magical child who is  _ not _ taught broom-flight, in large part due to the popularity of Quidditch and other broom-based sports. 

Enchantments that enhance the speed of travel used to be similarly common. These enchantments could be applied to boats or land vehicles, or combined with flight enchantments. For centuries, ‘seven league boots’ were popular in Europe, a complex enchantment that allowed large distances to be covered on foot. However, in the last four hundred years, these items have almost disappeared from use due to the Statute of Secrecy and the increasing popularity of translocation spells. 

Translocation spells are the family that includes modern portkeys, apparition, and floo. Unsurprisingly, given the relative complexity of the three methods, the portkey developed first, but it is, itself, a refinement of an earlier method. The origins of the portkey lie in ancient Greek spells to connect two doorways to each other, so that a traveller may walk through the door into a room that is far distant from his original location. These operated on the  _ alterum sicut alterum _ principle, just as mirror-based communication spells do, and relied on rune-anchored enchantments on the doors being used. It took a highly skilled wizard to turn an unprepared door into a temporary entryway, but it was possible, so long as the exit door had been properly prepared. 

The next major improvement in these enchantments was an object - a ‘portal key’ - that could turn a door into an entryway without additional spellwork. These facilitated travel for those who did not have the skill to temporarily enchant a door, and also came to act as a security measure. Only those with the appropriate key could come through a particular door. These keys first came into use in northern Europe around the fourth century AD, and became increasingly widespread over the following five hundred years. The first portkey not anchored to a door or gate is usually attributed to Rowena Ravenclaw (her interest in transportation magic can be seen around Hogwarts castle in the Grand Staircases and the many secret passages), and whether or not she was involved, this new type of portkey definitely appears in the historical record around the period of the Founders. Since then, portkeys have undergone successive generations of innovation, and are now one of the most powerful magical workings of our everyday lives. 

Floo transport bears strong similarities to early portal-based translocation. Fireplaces must be prepared in advance using runic enchantments, and ‘keyed’ to various destinations. When floo powder is burned in a prepared hearth, saying the name of the keyed destination will transport the traveller near-instantly to the target fireplace. At the time floo travel was invented (the late thirteenth century), each fireplace had to be keyed with each desired destination, but since the 1750s, a central exchange has formed the core of a national floo network. All travel within the network goes from the originating fireplace to the exchange, and from the exchange to the target fireplace, allowing ongoing expansion of floo destinations with minimal additional spellwork. While it is still technically possible to create direct hearth-to-hearth connections, it is strongly discouraged by the Department of Magical Transportation. 

The origins of apparition are less well-known: as a wandless, wordless spell, it is almost exclusively taught in person, and terminology has shifted over time, making it difficult to track in the historical record. Indeed, despite the widespread use of apparition, few could tell you how it works beyond the familiar ‘destination, determination, deliberation’ mantra. There is debate as to whether the twirling motion is required; what prevents apparition into other solid objects; why exactly splinching occurs; and whether it has appeared independently in multiple places or whether the knowledge has been spread by travellers. Historically, all this author will venture to say with certainty is that apparition licensing was legislated by the British Wizengamot in 1893.

\-----

Why then, given the availability of flight, fast travel, portkeys, floo, and apparition, was it necessary to construct and hide an entire railway system? A purely muggle technology in origin and immensely difficult to conceal due to its size, the risks of such an endeavour are substantial and ongoing - and that is without considering the costs of establishing it. Yet a hidden magical railway network extends north and west across the country from London, meeting at a hidden platform in the centre of a densely packed city. Why was it created?

The answer is a prosaic one: cargo. It is possible to transport luggage by portkey, floo, or apparition, but it becomes more difficult the larger that luggage gets. If it is too big to be carried by a single person, and for one reason or another is not suitable to be magically shrunk, magical translocation is insufficient for the task. Swift travel and flight are both ostentatiously magical, requiring substantial and reliable invisibility enchantments. (The sheer magical maintenance necessary for the operation of the Knight Bus is an excellent testimony to this.) Therefore, in order to transport goods such as those sold in Diagon Alley, or food supplies like those consumed at Hogwarts, muggle transportation methods were necessary.

Since well before the Statute of Secrecy, it has been common for large wizarding estates and businesses to employ a steward specifically for the purpose of liaising with muggle tenants, businesses, and officials. The transport of goods (and the disguise of magical goods while in transit through muggle areas) was generally a responsibility of these muggle liaisons, and over the centuries they adopted both canals and railways as a tool for efficient movement of cargo. Overtly magical goods required special packaging to avoid muggle discovery, but the inconvenience of doing so was far outweighed by the benefits of swift and affordable long-distance transport. 

The 1840s saw a rapid expansion of small muggle railway companies providing short-distance connections between specific locations as rail transport increased in popularity. So too, wizards (led by the muggle liaisons of large estates) began to commission connections between key locations and existing lines. The trend began with estates close to major metropolitan areas where railway lines were common, and over the next sixty years gradually expanded into more remote regions. It is these developments which led to Britain’s hidden railway network, and in 1897, to the very first Hogwarts Express service.


	3. Chapter 1: The Origins of the Hogwarts Express

While wizards initially adopted railway for transporting cargo, some also began to use passenger services. For those with substantial luggage, or large families, the mass transport capacity of trains was advantageous; it also allowed a more measured arrival for those concerned with appearances and impressions on others. As a result, the group that made the most early use of passenger rail were, in fact, Wizengamot families moving between London and their home estates with the changing seasons. Unsurprisingly, minimising exposure to muggles was a high priority for this group. 

Applying muggle-repelling and concealment charms to individual compartments allowed for further spells to increase the comfort of journeys which could be some hours in duration. Customising a train compartment demonstrated the wealth and power of the host, and indeed, over the latter part of the nineteenth century, many alliances and agreements were made on the train to London. As the muggle-repelling and concealment charms were fairly standard, the evolution of money-making enterprises to apply them to individual compartments (or indeed whole carriages) was entirely predictable. Charging as much as five sickles a head for entry to a muggle-free carriage, these businesses proliferated across the country. Muggleborn enchanter Thomas Vance was particularly successful in establishing a business to do so on the Great Western/Bristol and Exeter line which connected the wizard-dense South West to London. 

In 1854, Lord Atticus Warrington commissioned Thomas Vance, Bartholomew Smith, and Jonathan Figg to enchant an entire train for the occasion of the Wizengamot Yule Session. The endeavour was a massive undertaking, requiring invisibility, muggle-repelling, and memory charms on a scale that hadn’t been seen since Diagon Alley was warded in the early seventeenth century. Furthermore, the train had to be integrated into muggle timetable and signalling systems to ensure its safety - but sufficiently isolated from them to deter muggle passengers. The full story could fill a book - and indeed it has, in this author’s previous publication,  _ The 10:23 from Exeter: Britain’s First Hidden Railway Journey _ . Needless to say, the success of this endeavour led to substantial speculation about a regular service, and Vance took advantage of this interest to build support for a wizards-only railway station in London. He founded the British Hidden Railway Company (BHRC) in 1856, and it retains exclusive control of Britain’s magical railway operations. 

In 1865, the project to construct Platform 9 ¾ began, hidden within the expansion of King’s Cross Station that opened to the public in 1875. (See Chapter 7 for more on Platform 9 ¾.) The project relied on the use of undetectable extension charms, both for the platform itself, and for the railway tracks connecting it to various destinations. While deflecting muggles from an area of land might be possible in the countryside, in the crowded streets of London, expandable space was considered the better investment. 

The BHRC produced lengths of pipe which were enchanted for durability, obscurity to muggles, horizontal and vertical expansion (but not longitudinal), and one-way transparency so that wizarding passengers could see the world outside the train. The specific enchantments are a trade secret of the BHRC, as are the enchantments that facilitate junctions between the pipes and unexpanded space. A BHRC train moves between tracks laid within this enchanted space and existing muggle tracks several times on its journey, and any comparison with the Knight Bus will demonstrate how remarkably smooth these transitions are. 

In 1879, the BHRC began construction of a railway line between Hogsmeade and the recently opened station at the muggle town of Tyndrum. This connection linked Hogsmeade to the West Highland line, and through it, the London and North Western Railway that ran from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Hogwarts’ supply lines quickly shifted to incorporate rail transport, and the first recorded Hogwarts student to arrive by rail was as early as 1881 (see Chapter 8 for more on Hogsmeade Station). However, there was no dedicated express service until 1897.

In their early years of operation (and indeed to this day), the BHRC primarily provided freight services for magical goods. From 1875 to 1889, passenger services ran only once a day on the Western line to Exeter, with a special first-class-only service added on the days prior to Wizengamot sittings. BHRC opened a Glasgow-to-Hogsmeade freight service in 1883, and their full Northern line was completed in 1892, with a similar ratio of freight to passenger services as the Western line. For the first time, it was possible to travel from Exeter to London to Hogsmeade on exclusively muggle-free railway. (See Chapter 6 for more on the BHRC Northern line, and Chapter 9 for other notable stations along the line.) 

The next decade saw an increasing number of students arriving to Hogwarts by rail, both muggleborn and from wizarding families. In 1897, BHRC offered a ‘Hogwarts Express’ passenger service at the beginning and end of the school year which made only five stops between London and Hogsmeade (at Rugby, Crewe, Preston, Carlisle, and Carstairs). The service was so popular over the following three years that BHRC was able to negotiate a deal with Hogwarts to offer the Express exclusively to students, using the first-class-only train that was usually used for Wizengamot sittings (see Chapter 3 for more on the passenger carriages). The cost was a ten sickles per student, paid by the students and their families, and the exclusive service was first offered as a celebration of the new century in 1900.

Over the next thirty years, the Hogwarts Express became a British magical institution, and pressure from major wizarding families (most of whom lived along the Western line, and joined the express service in London) saw the stops along the way dropped from the route. These changes dropped the total travel time to eight hours - approaching the speed of the muggle record-setting train,  _ The Flying Scotsman. _ Since then, improvements to the locomotive have reduced that time by a quarter, creating the Hogwarts Express service we know and love today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be clear, I have no plans to write the rest of the book...so if you'd like to, go ahead!


End file.
